2014

The European Commission wants to reduce the administrative burdens of micro-entities. It is therefore proposing an amending Directive, which would enable Member States to exempt micro-entities from the obligation to draw up annual accounts.

2014

The consumer markets scoreboard serves to monitor the “performance“ of the internal market from the consumers’ perspective and to identify parts of it that “are not functioning well“. Moreover, consumer options for cross-border shopping within the EU are to be assessed and the general conditions for effective consumer protection in the single Member States be benchmarked.

2014

The Proposal for a Directive is to recast the "WEEE Directive" 2002/96/EC, which regulates the waste management of electrical and electronic equipment. The adverse impact of this waste on the environment and human health is to be prevented and used more efficiently as a source of raw materials. Producers must meet an annual minimum rate in each Member State for overall recovery, as well as for the preparation for the re-use and recycling of WEEE. Registration and reporting obligations should now be harmonised and the national registers should be made inter-operable.

2014

The Commission wishes to accelerate the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and to establish a legal framework. In its Action Plan the Commission calls for action and sets a timeframe for the deployment and improvement of single ITS.

2014

The analysed Proposal for a Directive is part of the Pharmaceutical Package to improve the safety of medicinal products. The Proposal focuses on the protection of distribution chains from manufacturers to pharmacies against the entry of falsified medicinal products. During debates held previous to the Proposal the Commission opted for maintaining parallel import trade. To this end, the measures proposed now are restricted to prescription medicines, which constitute the majority of medicinal products traded through parallel import.

2014

The Communication continues the "more economic approach" in competition law in a much diluted manner: The Commission wants to pursue only cases in which certain behaviour of a dominant company "forecloses" a market.

2014

The Commission proposes highly ambitious climate protection targets for both developing and industrial countries. To this end, emissions trading is to be extended. In addition, financial support to developing countries is to be partially financed through EU bonds.

2014

The creation of freight corridors aims to establish a European rail network and to increase the competitiveness of rail transport. As a consequence, freight transport will be given priority over passenger transport.

2014

According to the EU Commission, all credit rating agencies in the EU should be registered and should fulfil certain requirements on their independence and transparency. Banks and other regulated financial service providers should be allowed to use ratings from such agencies only, when calculated the own funds they must retain.